Roth makes a bold entrance to adult fantasy.
What happens to heroes after they save the world?
Sloane Andrews, Matthew Weekes, Esther Park, Albert Summers, and Ines Mejia fulfilled a prophecy by defeating an evil villain and saving the human race. But that was a decade ago. Now, they’re no longer teenagers, and enough time has passed that stand-up comedians are joking about why the murderous sorcerer who destroyed entire towns with magical “Drains” akin to natural disasters was called the “Dark One.” The magic he wielded with such deadly force is now the subject of dry academic writing. These days the five “chosen ones” are huge celebrities, but they still have to deal with realistic mundanities like making a living and caring for sick parents. Sloane in particular is struggling with PTSD and, after a few Freedom of Information Act requests, is reading about a more complicated side of the government official who helped train them as kids to fight the Dark One. Not long after a big celebration marking the 10-year anniversary of the Dark One’s death, Albert dies of an overdose. When Sloane, Matthew, and Esther gather together for his funeral, something unimaginable happens. As it turns out, the Dark One may not be gone after all, and everything they thought they knew about magic, the Dark One, and the prophecy that predicted his demise is wrong. Roth (The End and Other Beginnings: Stories From the Future, 2019, etc.) made her name by writing bestselling YA action/adventure novels like the Divergent series, so it makes sense that she can so expertly deconstruct those tropes for adult audiences. There’s a lot of magic and action to make for a propulsive plot, but much more impressive are the character studies as Roth takes recognizable and beloved teen-hero types and explores what might happen to them as adults.
Roth makes a bold entrance to adult fantasy.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-16408-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: John Joseph Adams/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
In Conner's alternate 1930, a lethal hemorrhagic fever (known as Hun for its supposed origins in the German trenches of 1918) has repeatedly swept the world, leaving few white survivors; oddly, black Africans are wholly immune. In Milltown, Minn., white press photographer Danny Constantine accidentally captures on film a murder in which the victim appears to have been drained of blood; the killer seems to be a blond woman—but someone else stood by, watching. Black detective sergeant Dooley Willson proves none too impressed with Constantine's vampire theories. Meanwhile, a mystery woman calling herself the Archangel broadcasts inspirational messages and music from a pirate radio station. And, at a wealthy nearby clinic, brilliant, mesmerizing, but creepy physician Simon Gray has found that massive blood transfusions from black donors can keep white Hun victims alive. But Gray also conducts horrid experiments in secret: Indeed, Constantine suspects that Gray has created vampires, able to pump their victims' blood directly into their own veins. Certainly Gray has made dark deals with both the KKK and local black gangster Theo Rostek. But Constantine can't figure out the hold Gray has over his attractive, rich patient Selena Crockett. Could she be the vampire killer? And who is the Archangel? More horror than science fiction. Chills aside, the basic premise will make many readers uncomfortable. Still, despite some problems with plot credibility, an intriguing and inventive hardcover debut.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-85743-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
Perhaps best considered as parody, with strong infusions of farce and satire, Pratchett's Discworld fantasies (The Light Fantastic, 1987, etc.) consist of elliptical jokes and mad puns delivered in an unobtrusive English accent, and move to their own inimitable logic. This time, Death (you know, skeleton, scythe, and so forth) becomes burdened by his infallible memory — he can even remember things that haven't happened yet — and, in an effort to forget, decides to join the Foreign Legion, whose members forget things, no problem, but only in their own particular fashion ("...you know...thing...clothes, everybody wears them...sand-colored"). While Death's away, his granddaughter, Susan, presently attending a posh finishing school, must take over his function. Susan has a helper, a rat-skeleton called the Death of Rats ("Do you just do rats, or mice and hamsters and weasels and stuff like that as well?...Death of Gerbils too? Amazing how you can catch up with them on those treadmills"). Meanwhile, talented musician Imp (from a place so wet that "rain was the county's main export. It had rain mines") has somehow acquired a magic guitar that plays utterly compelling Music With Rocks In It. Susan, scheduled to terminate Imp forthwith, finds herself unable to wield her scythe, thus threatening the magical stability of the entire Discworld. None of the peerless Pratchett's Discworld yarns are dull, and some are comic masterpieces. This one, unfailingly amusing and sometimes hysterically funny, is recommended for anyone with the slightest trace of a sense of humor.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0061054895
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
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